Bob Ainsworth: The hon. Lady is effectively making allegations about the cause of the tragedy involving the dolphins. There is no evidence that this was caused by any activities for the Royal Navy, but of course we will co-operate with any ongoing investigations that there might be into this matter.

David Hamilton: Retention and recruitment is indeed a problem, but is that not as much to do with the fact that we have virtually zero unemployment out there, and will that not continue to be a problem? Surely we should be welcoming those from other Commonwealth countries coming into this country, unlike the Opposition?

Derek Twigg: As my hon. Friend knows, we made some changes to the scheme last year to take account of multiple injuries, but as I announced previously in the House, a review is under way, on which I can assure him there will be wide consultation. We are considering a variety of matters, and we will publish that when it has been completed.

Liam Fox: I thank the Secretary of State for his statement and for advance sight of it. I fully associate the Conservative party with all that he has said about our servicemen and women and the dangers that they face.
	Those who have given their lives in Afghanistan are irreplaceable to their families and friends and we will remember those families in our thoughts and prayers. We will also share their pride that we still have professional and courageous servicemen and women who are brave enough to sacrifice themselves for the security of the people of this country.
	We must always remember that we are in Afghanistan for reasons of national security, to deny a safe haven to those who would commit indiscriminate acts of terrorist murder on men, women and children. We must remember that it is an international mission sanctioned by the UN and led by NATO. The Afghanistan compact, which followed the London conference, set out four objectives: increased security, drug reduction, an efficient executive and economic and social development. Progress has been made on social development, but the process of government remains compromised by corruption and a lack of co-ordination between the military, reconstruction and political missions. The military command also needs greater clarity of purpose and simplification of structure—a point regularly raised by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition, and he raised it again today in talks with President Bush.
	There has been no progress on the drugs issue, with no alternative sources of income being made available to those for whom growing poppies is the only means of feeding themselves. If anything, the situation has deteriorated. Security has improved in some parts of the country, as the Secretary of State said, but it remains undermined in the south by the continued insurgency, the breakout of Taliban prisoners in Kandahar, and the Pakistani Government's attitude to border issues. A former NATO commander, General McNeill, recently said that more troops were needed to defeat the Taliban-led insurgency. He said that
	"it's an under-resourced force",
	and he expressed concern that NATO could become a "two-tiered alliance", with an insufficient number of countries truly committed to fighting against the Taliban.
	We have seen how the fighting in the south of the country has been left to the Americans, the British, the Canadians, the Dutch and a number of valiant smaller forces, while some of the biggest NATO allies have been risk averse, to say the least. Will the Secretary of State give the House an assessment of how great a threat is posed to the achievement of the aims of the Afghan compact by the underactivity of some of our NATO allies, and does he agree that the message from the United Kingdom should be that it is unacceptable for all those in NATO to have the same insurance policy if only some of us pay the full premiums?
	We will now have 8,000 personnel in Afghanistan and 4,000 personnel on active operations in Iraq. We have consistently raised concerns about the force size in Afghanistan. Does the Secretary of State believe that, with the increase that he announced today, the force size is now sufficient for the safety and effectiveness of our troops, and can he tell us by how many troops General McNeill believes NATO, as a whole, is short? How confident can the Secretary of State be that he can fill the 630 new posts that he announced today with correctly qualified personnel who have had sufficient rest and training? He tells us that some of the announcements that he made today will take a year to come into effect; can he be more specific on that point?
	Recent deaths in Afghanistan have shown the Taliban's shift towards suicide bombing as a tactic. We have seen in Iraq what that can mean. Will the Secretary of State give an assurance that all necessary protective equipment is available to minimise the risk to our armed forces on the ground, and can he give an assurance that there is the fullest co-operation from the Afghan police and military in attempting to minimise those threats? The increase announced today was predictable, but does it not make a mockery of the Government's national security strategy, published only 12 weeks ago, which said that
	"we are entering a phase of overall reduced commitments, recuperation of our people, and regrowth and reinvestment in capabilities and training"?
	That is a dangerous and harmful fantasy; what we have is overstretch.
	I believe that the Government are genuinely committed to a successful outcome in Afghanistan, and they know that they have our full support on that objective, but they need urgently to address the gap between commitments and military capabilities if we are to succeed. Above all, we need to recalibrate expectations. We cannot simply drop a Jeffersonian democracy on to a broken 13th-century state and expect it to work in five or even 10 years' time. It will be a long haul, so we must properly plan for a long haul, and not for six-month rotations for our commanders, or sixth-month or annual budget allocations for reconstruction efforts. We need to bring our military and financial planning into line with the political reality. I am sure that those on both sides of the House agree strongly that the costs of failure are far too high to contemplate.

Des Browne: The timing of the new announcement was dictated by the decisions that were made. Once they had been made, I determined that I would come to the House at the earliest possible opportunity to explain them. Unfortunately, I had to be at a NATO meeting last week, on Thursday and Friday, otherwise I would have been able to make the statement earlier. I always try to make statements to the House at the earliest possible opportunity.
	I welcome the hon. Gentleman's introductory remarks and am delighted that he and his party are in exactly the same place as the significant majority of those in the House and, indeed, in the other place in respect of what we are seeking to do in Afghanistan. Of course, many people say that the mission is impossible. They either say that it cannot be done and we should not be engaged in Afghanistan, or they misrepresent the situation. They do exactly what I suspect the hon. Gentleman fears in respect of the coincidence of the visit of the President of the United States and the statement, which is to look at everything that we do militarily through the prism of Iraq. That is deeply unhelpful. I have spent a lot of my time as Secretary of State trying to persuade our media that Afghanistan is the right place for our people to be. The fact that 40 countries are involved and that many of the most developed social democratic countries in the world are present with troops on the ground is an indication of just how right it is.
	This morning I had a conversation with the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon, in which his support for what we are seeking to do in the context of the Security Council resolution was completely unwavering. We all have a responsibility to try to shift British public opinion. I believe that it has shifted in relation to the rightness of the mission and the military objectives, and we now have to shift it in relation to the progress being made in all the other complementary parts of the comprehensive approach and explain to them that we need strategic patience in order to do what we are doing in a very difficult and challenging environment.
	As for counter-narcotics, this year we will, as usual, have to wait for the official count as regards the assessment of the poppy crop, but early indications suggest that we have stabilised or reduced the production of poppy. There may be several reasons for that. The hon. Gentleman rightly identifies that that generates an opportunity. The whole focus of our efforts in northern Helmand is designed to put together the secure spaces that we have generated and to control the ability to communicate between them. That is part of the key to creating a secure logistical environment for moving other, legitimate, crops around so that they will not be taken advantage of by the Taliban. That will be key to building sustainable alternative crops for the farmers in Helmand province.

Mike Hancock: Although the Secretary of State said that 50,000 Afghan troops had now been trained, fewer than 10,000 of them have been fully equipped. What will NATO do about the shortfall in equipment, to ensure that the 50,000 trained Afghanis have the right equipment to allow them to participate in the sort of action in which British troops and others are currently involved?

Des Browne: It is probably a bit early to be asking whether people who were sprung from prison on Friday night have made any statistical difference to the people whom we will face. That operation is still ongoing. We are, with others, keeping a careful eye on it and there has been some progress in rearresting some of those who escaped from the prison.
	I think I used the phrase the majority of the fighters, so that is more than 50 per cent. What is the basis of that? I will not go into the detail of the figures in the House, but that is our experience from those whom we are engaged with and from the fact that, quite often, we recover people from the battle space because they are injured or identify their bodies later. That information is provided to me by those who are engaged with them.
	The particular basis of that assertion arises from the place where there has been the most intense engagement with the Taliban over the last weeks—the southern Helmand area, where the US marine expeditionary unit has been deployed. That is the overwhelming experience of the people it is having to deal with.

Jack Straw: With permission, Mr. Speaker, I would like to make a statement about the funding of political parties. The Government are today publishing a White Paper on party finance and expenditure in the United Kingdom. Copies are available in the Vote Office and on my Department's website.
	How our politics is funded is vital for the health of any democratic system, including ours. Over the last decade, important steps have been taken towards achieving this. In 1998, the Committee on Standards in Public Life under its then chairman, Lord Neill of Bladen, published a landmark report, which went on to form the basis of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000.
	It must also be fundamental to the health of our democracy that the regime for regulating political parties should never be used as a partisan tool by one party against others, and instead that change should be by way of broad cross-party agreement and achieved in a manner that carries wider public support. That spirit led to the passage of the 2000 Act by consensus and continues to be a guiding principle for this—and I hope any—Government's approach.
	The 2000 Act represented the first major overhaul of the regulation of party funding and expenditure for more than 100 years. It has greatly helped to improve transparency and standards, but it has not proved sufficient. In the intervening period, there has been continuing public disquiet about many aspects of how parties and politicians are funded. In March 2006, Sir Hayden Phillips was therefore invited by the then Prime Minister, Tony Blair, to conduct a further review, including as to whether state funding should be enhanced in return for a cap on donations.
	Sir Hayden's final report was published in this House on 15 March last year. It made major recommendations for reform of the Electoral Commission, for tightening the controls on expenditure, for greater transparency and for a gradual move to enhanced state funding linked to a cap on donations. All parties explicitly welcomed Sir Hayden's report and accepted its main recommendations, including those for cross-party talks chaired by him to take forward the report's recommendations. Those talks proceeded satisfactorily until last year's summer recess. Sir Hayden then issued detailed proposals based on what he judged might form the basis for a consensus between the parties. It is a matter of great regret that, in late, October one of the parties decided to walk out of the talks, making agreement impossible.
	Against that background, Her Majesty's Government undertook in the Queen's Speech to bring forward proposals on party finance and expenditure. The White Paper is the result. It proposes measures to improve the regulatory system. It sets out the Government's aspiration for long-term comprehensive reform, building on the model proposed by Sir Hayden Phillips. In those areas where the Government believe that a broad consensus exists, it outlines plans to bring forward immediate legislation, including reform of the Electoral Commission and more effective controls on candidate spending.
	The excessive spending by parties and candidates gives rise to the wider problems with party finance that we see today. Repeated independent reviews—including those from Sir Hayden Phillips, the Committee on Standards in Public Life and the then Constitutional Affairs Committee—have called the problem a "spending arms race", although some individuals, I know, still question its existence. But a spending arms race is evident within each electoral cycle. As Sir Hayden's report said, spending by the two largest parties was £90 million in the 12 months preceding the 2005 election, up from £65 million in the 12 months before the 2001 election. That was despite the campaign limit being set at £20 million for each party. Although the parties did not act unlawfully, their ability to spend well above the campaign limit under the Act reveals a problem with the rules. In the interests of democracy, we need finally to achieve what all parties had sought to do through the 2000 Act, and to stop this damaging arms race.
	The White Paper proposes some important steps for immediate action. Strengthening the Electoral Commission will send a clear signal that politics and politicians are effectively scrutinised: never above the law. The Electoral Commission will have robust civil sanctions to deploy, with criminal proceedings as an alternative. The commission will have more effective investigatory powers, enabling it to access information from anybody when it suspects a breach of the rules. Its governance arrangements will be overhauled better to ensure that greater practical experience is available to it.
	The Committee on Standards in Public Life, the then Constitutional Affairs Committee and Sir Hayden Phillips all recommended that the commission would benefit from the knowledge and judgment of individuals with political backgrounds. Therefore, we propose, as the Committee on Standards in Public Life recommended, the appointment of four commissioners with recent political experience and fewer restrictions on staff appointments. Far from politicising the Commission, that will enable it better to understand the people it regulates and so help it to do a more effective job.
	There has been widespread concern that a loophole in the 2000 Act has allowed certain unincorporated associations to obscure the original source of donations to parties. Therefore, as the Phillips review proposed, those will be better regulated, as will third-party campaigning organisations.
	Let me turn to spending by parties. In 2000, when I took through the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act, all believed that we were, in the words of Lord Neill's report, "buttressing" the existing restrictions on spending, including those in the Representation of the People Act 1983 and its predecessors. What we did not foresee at the time was the likelihood of significant increased and unregulated candidate spending as a result of the detailed drafting of the Bill, although the late Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish, who was on the Conservative Front Bench, sought to alert us to the problem by tabling a clarifying amendment on behalf of his party.
	The White Paper proposes a return to the system of "triggering", which will regulate all candidate spending directed towards electoral success, and which was a key feature of the last Administration's 1983 Act. A stronger, more focused Electoral Commission will help to avoid the previous uncertainty about the rules. In parallel with that, we propose to re-examine the list of activities that are defined as campaign spending.
	Let me turn to the question of introducing donation caps in return for enhanced state funding. To do that, we would have to carry with us not only all the main parties, but the public—the taxpayer—as well. That is not happening at present. We are very ready to have the debate, and, indeed, to discuss donation caps at a lower level than Sir Hayden recommended, but that will require us to come together to allow discussion between the parties and the public. I intend to introduce a Bill before the summer recess, but with Second Reading taking place in the early autumn and the other stages being carried over into the next Session. That will provide ample opportunity both for comments to be made to us and for scrutiny to be carried out.
	By any international comparison, the standards of our political system have long been high. Nothing more infuriates most Members of Parliament, local councillors and, especially, the thousands of unpaid voluntary activists in all parties than the fact that their work and good faith can be tainted by the failures of a very few. However, perceptions matter hugely. I hope the whole House recognises the imperative in these circumstances of strengthening the probity of British politics and of people's faith in our democratic process as a whole. That is the principal aim of the White Paper, and we hope that all parties will support us in our endeavour. I commend the statement and the White Paper to the House.

Francis Maude: I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of his statement and of the White Paper. I think the whole House will agree that party funding reform is very much needed to restore trust in our politics, and to deal with the perception that large donations, whether from individuals or from organisations such as trade unions, can buy undue influence over policy or patronage.
	I entirely agree with the Secretary of State that perceptions matter hugely. That is why we produced radical reform proposals early in 2006, well before Sir Hayden's appointment. Sir Hayden, incidentally, deserves our huge thanks for the enormous work that he put in. His proposals on Electoral Commission reform are especially welcome. We took part in the discussions enthusiastically, and, as evidence of our commitment to reaching agreement, even accepted that an overall settlement could include an increase in state funding, although we neither seek that nor consider it desirable. We further accepted that there could be overall caps on spending by parties, although it is clearly how money is raised that worries the public, not how much is spent.  [Interruption.] It is interesting to note that Sir Hayden's terms of reference refer only to donations. Spending by parties does not even get a mention.
	The Secretary of State will recollect that, in setting up the review, Tony Blair said explicitly that there would be no no-go areas and, in particular, that trade union funding should not be exempt from any donation caps. Was it not always understood that reform must be comprehensive, and that there should be no cherry-picking to serve the governing party's partisan interests—that nothing would be agreed until everything was agreed? Does the Secretary of State accept that a partisan Bill now cannot provide the basis for a long-term and sustainable settlement? Has he read the independent research by Dr. Pinto-Duschinsky, which shows that there is no arms race in party spending? Is this not a myth to give credence to a bankrupt Labour party's desire to hamstring its opponents?
	Will the Justice Secretary agree that the discussions came very close to overall agreement, but foundered on the key issue of whether trade union donations should be subject to donation caps on the same basis as other donations? Will he now place in the Library the minutes and the background papers to the review, which will show that it was Labour's refusal to allow further work on trade union funding that brought the talks to an end? Does he recall that he and Peter Watt—the then Labour general secretary—refused point blank even to discuss giving trade union members the right to a real choice in whether to pay the political levy?  [Interruption.] Well, does the Secretary of State remember the revelation that a Lib Dem MP received a ballot paper for Labour's leadership contest, having unwittingly become a Labour party member through a trade union? Will he not acknowledge that when trade unions routinely declare that 100 per cent. of their members—and in two cases, more than 100 per cent.—are paying the political levy, the idea that these are voluntary individual donations to Labour are laughable, especially when polling shows that fewer than half of union members even vote Labour, let alone want to support it financially?
	Does the Secretary of State accept that his proposal to reintroduce "triggering" was not even part of Sir Hayden's draft agreement? Is not this change designed to make it more difficult—a caption in the White Paper makes this clear—for candidates to campaign effectively, and thus to benefit sitting Labour MPs? Does the Secretary of State not understand that it would be an atrocious abuse of power for the Government to force through restrictions on what parliamentary candidates can spend from money they have raised privately, while sitting MPs can spend ever-more taxpayers' money on promoting themselves?
	Last year, we came close to an overall comprehensive agreement that could genuinely have started to repair the public's trust in politics, and I say to the Justice Secretary that we can still achieve this. However, it would require Labour to accept that dependence on a small number of union bosses has to end. Sadly, it is hard to see that happening when 92 per cent. of Labour's income comes from the unions, who even now are squaring up to demand their payback in the form of a Warwick agreement mark 2. It is precisely Labour's dependence on these union bosses and the big donor culture that is preventing us from getting the reform that our politics so desperately needs.

Jack Straw: I greatly regret the tone adopted by the right hon. Gentleman, and his unsuccessful and thin efforts to rewrite the history of what happened in respect of the Hayden Phillips discussions. For as he knows—and as the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath), who was present, has stated—the truth is that we, the Conservative party and the Liberal Democrats all said on 15 March that we were ready to negotiate on the basis of the Hayden Phillips recommendations, and we did so. Indeed, we continued to negotiate on that basis until there was a sudden change, late in the summer of last year, in the policy and approach of the Conservative party. The hon. Member for Somerton and Frome told the House that
	"the process that led to the breakdown of the talks...was caused by the Conservatives walking away."—[ Official Report, 7 November 2007; Vol. 467, c. 224.]
	The right hon. Gentleman may, if he wishes, put in a freedom of information request for the minutes, but he has not yet done so. That would deal with this situation, however. An independent individual could judge the issue. We would consider this, but it is a matter for Hayden Phillips, not for me. However, we do not need FOI requests or the minutes of the meeting, because two other Members of this Chamber as well, as the right hon. Gentleman, bear witness to precisely what happened. The truth is that, as we have just witnessed from his partisan approach—which was totally different from the one that he and his party colleagues adopted in the working party—the Conservative party decided to move away from the main recommendations of the Hayden Phillips report.  [Interruption.] Did the right hon. Gentleman say, "Yes"?  [Interruption.] Indeed, Hayden Phillips did deal with the issue of trade union funding.
	We made it clear, before and afterwards, that we were ready to implement what Sir Hayden Phillips proposed, but the Conservative party sought to recommend something very different, breaking not only the spirit of what he had said, but, for example, of what the Constitutional Affairs Select Committee had said. It said, again endorsed by Sir Hayden Phillips, words to the effect that no party had the right by legislation to seek to change the constitution of another party. We have never done so. We could have when we had a very considerable majority in this House back in 1999 and 2000; we still have, and we are not going to do so.
	The right hon. Gentleman said that there is no arms race. This defies arithmetic and everything that his representatives said in the working party with Sir Hayden. I will quote, if I may, the then Opposition spokesperson on this issue, the hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert):
	"We are much more interested in reducing the cost of politics and that is what David Cameron has made clear."
	So far as Dr. Pinto-Duschinsky's so-called research is concerned—it rather desperately needs some peer reviewing—he very skilfully selects mid-term spending by political parties. He says that there was
	"no time to analyse published and unpublished budgets of Labour and Conservative...organisations for 2004, 2005 and 2006".
	How convenient, because what we see and what we know is that spending always rises in the last two years before a Parliament is due to end. Had he addressed himself to the available research—the much better research—by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, he would have seen, for example, that spending donations received in local Conservative parties and marginal seats averaged £19,600, compared with £6,500 and £7,700 in Labour and Liberal Democrat marginals. What we—and, I believe, the Liberal Democrats—wish to see, and what the Conservative party wished to see until last summer is sensible, non-partisan rules that we can come together and agree on. I hope that, even at this late stage, the Conservative party will think again.

Jack Straw: I honestly do not think so. That issue was not raised by Neill or during the passage of the 2000 Act or its predecessor, the Representation of the People Act 1983. Neill said that all his proposed controls should be in addition to the 1983 regime—"buttress" was the word that he used. Everybody thought that that was the case except for the noble and acute Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish. From the Opposition Front Bench in the other place, he moved amendments to clarify what he thought might be a loophole in the law on advice that was turned down as unnecessary by Ministers in the Lords. I have regretted that piece of advice ever since. I do not think that there is any evidence to suggest that the worries expressed by the hon. Gentleman will be substantiated, but I will check and write to him.

Jack Straw: I share the hon. Gentleman's disappointment. He was party to the talks, and he represented his party very effectively. The right hon. Member for Horsham (Mr. Maude) also represented his party very well, but his script was changed sometime in the summer of 2007. It is disappointing, but we can make progress, if there is broad agreement across the Chamber on spending controls, which is what we are proposing. Everybody, apart from one or two flat-earthers, recognises that the rise in spending is the driver for all the other problems.

Jack Straw: I do not approve of that practice, and I have never followed it myself. We had a great debate about the communications allowance about 18 months ago, and one reason why it was introduced was to control the abuse of overspending, for example, on franked envelopes. That is one of the things that it has achieved, but I told the hon. Member for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans) that if there are issues— [ Interruption. ] I know that there are—to discuss, we should discuss them, but that requires all three parties to sit down and discuss them in talks from which one party should not walk away, knowing that they are departing from an agreed agenda established by an independent inspector.

William Hague: The Foreign Secretary began by saying that the referendum result in Ireland is important because of our national interest in an effective European Union. I agree with him about that, but I hope that he agrees with me that it is also important because it is an inspiring example of democracy in action. People say that there is a disconnection between the EU and its peoples, but Thursday's vote was proof that when people are given a real say on the EU, they respond in vast numbers with turnout higher than in any European elections held in this country. Was it not also a courageous vote, given that the threats that Ireland would suffer if it voted no did not deter the Irish from making their own decision on the treaty? I am sorry that the Foreign Secretary did not find it in himself to congratulate Irish voters on either of those points.
	Following as it does the French and Dutch rejections of the original constitution— a treaty that was, in the words of Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern, "90 per cent." the same as the Lisbon treaty—is it not now clear beyond doubt that there is profound opposition among the peoples of Europe to the substance of this treaty? Given that no one would ever call the peoples of France, the Netherlands and Ireland anti-European, is it not now clearer than ever that it is absurd to describe as anti-European disagreement with a treaty that further centralises power away from Europe's nation states towards remote EU institutions?
	The Foreign Secretary has said that the result has to be respected and that
	"there can be no question of bulldozing or bamboozling or ignoring the Irish vote".
	We very much agree with that. However, is not that exactly what he and the Prime Minister are doing by pressing on with ratification in this country? If that is the Government's position, why was one newspaper briefed yesterday that the Prime Minister
	"is privately ready to sacrifice the Lisbon treaty"?
	If that is the Government's true position, why will not Ministers say so? Instead of the Government trying to have it both ways, why can we not have some clarity from them? Did not a previous Labour Foreign Secretary set out the only right course for this country yesterday, when he wrote:
	"by any conceivable test of democratic procedure, the House of Lords should vote to put Treaty ratification on ice...to simply plough ahead on a straight vote to accept or reject the EU...Bill is to demonstrate nothing less than a contempt for the democracy on which the European Union is supposed to be founded"?
	Is not the Czech Prime Minister right to say that the Irish no is
	"no less serious than the previous French and Dutch noes"?
	So why, given that after those referendums the then Foreign Secretary came here to announce that the ratification of the constitution was suspended, has this Foreign Secretary come here to announce the opposite? Is the message that in today's EU small countries do not count?
	Should not the Government now plainly state that Britain will suspend ratification in this country immediately, give a clear message at this week's summit that the treaty is finished, and make the fundamental point that no lasting political institutions can be built in democratic societies without the people's consent? Is that not what real respect for the referendum would mean? Is it not essential that all preparations for implementing the treaty, including on the European External Action Service, are now suspended and that the EU takes no action that is not legally provided for under the current treaties? Does the Foreign Secretary agree that respecting the result means not asking the Irish people to vote again? Will he undertake on the Government's behalf that they will take no part in any bullying of Ireland? Would it not be extraordinary for the Irish to vote twice on this treaty, when British voters have not had the opportunity to vote once?
	The Foreign Secretary has said that ratification here must proceed so that there can be a "British view" on the treaty, but the reality is that the Government have never spoken for the British view. If they want to find out the British view, are there not two very easy ways for them to do so? The first is to call a general election, of which the Prime Minister is, with good reason, terrified; and the second is to keep the promise that the Government made at the last election to call a referendum in the United Kingdom, which would assuredly tell the people of Ireland that in rejecting the Lisbon treaty they are by no means alone.

Ken Purchase: The Foreign Secretary is being exceedingly kind to the Irish in wanting to give as much time as possible in order to reach some sort of solution to what I can call only a Milliganesque situation resulting from the referendum. It may be necessary at some stage to find ways in which we can proceed, with or without the Irish. Together with his colleagues in Europe, he should now be thinking seriously about we might move forward—unfortunately, perhaps as a two-speed Europe—and ensure that all the advantages that Britain has seen over the years are not dissipated by this particular vote, which represents a very small percentage of the total votes in Ireland.

Beverley Hughes: I will refer to that shortly, if my hon. Friend will bear with me.
	In addition to the measures I have mentioned, there has been significant extra spending. Between 2001-02 and 2006-07, Government funding rose from £1.3 million to £2.1 million, during a period when the number of children in care levelled off.
	All this has made a difference. The proportion of such children in education, employment or training at 19 has increased by 8 per cent. and educational attainment continues to rise. The truth is, however, that although the life chances of all children have improved, those of children in care have not improved as fast, and although their poor outcomes are undoubtedly significantly related to the serious problems with which they come into care, for too many children they are also exacerbated by the very experience of care itself. Multiple placements, successive social workers and moving school at crucial times all militate against the stability and strong attachments that these children need in order to thrive. Therefore, our priority in this Bill is to achieve a step change in the improvements we have already begun to see for children in care, to enable them to progress further and faster and, crucially, to close the inequality gaps between them and other children.
	The Bill follows the Care Matters White Paper that we published last June, which set out our strategy to transform the life chances of children in care. It drew on detailed and extensive research and a wide-ranging consultation with children and young people themselves, parents, carers, local authorities and voluntary organisations. The Bill and the White Paper enshrine four key principles: good parenting from every person involved in these children's lives; the voice of young people being at the heart of the system; stability and continuity as its hallmarks; and an uncompromising culture of high aspirations.
	We all understand the importance of strong, warm, interested parents in developing happy and successful children. When a child lacks that support from their own parents, we have not just a legal, but a moral responsibility, to look after children in care as well as any good parent would. The Bill embeds good "corporate parenting" across the whole care system—from carers, teachers and social workers to directors of children's services and elected lead members. As the Care Matters implementation plan makes clear, everyone in the system must not only care for looked-after children, but also care about them. Replicating the care that a child would normally receive from parents means a change of culture, which we expect directors of children's services and lead members to drive forward. It also means a relentless focus on the quality of care in the places children live.
	Despite some excellent provision, only a quarter of residential homes meet 90 per cent. of the national minimum standards. That is completely unacceptable. The Bill therefore gives Her Majesty's chief inspector more power to take swift and decisive action when standards are not met. Clause 26 allows her to issue a "compliance notice" to providers failing to meet expected standards, while clause 27 allows the chief inspector to restrict admissions to residential settings where necessary. Simultaneously, we are reviewing the national minimum standards to make them clearer and more focused on outcomes for children. The Bill also addresses foster care approvals, establishing an independent review mechanism similar to the current mechanism allowing prospective adopters to challenge decisions by adoption agencies.
	Improving quality also means developing a truly world-class children's work force. In social care, that means a stable, motivated work force who are appropriately trained, skilled and confident in their abilities.

Beverley Hughes: Yes, and that is true of all those provisions, including the ones I mentioned on cash payments and giving preferences for placements. During the consultation I talked to many grandparents, and I am aware, as the hon. Gentleman doubtless is, of heart-rending stories that people told of how matters were made really difficult by the current arrangements in many local authorities. We want to make sure that such things do not happen, because if children can live with grandparents and that is in their interests, that is by far the best place for them to be. We want to make sure that practice changes in this regard.
	Clause 25 gives statutory underpinning to short breaks for disabled children being developed over the next three years through the £359 million "aiming high for disabled children" programme.
	Finally, alongside improving the experience of those in care, we must also raise their aspirations and those of everyone caring for them. Schools must understand the unique learning needs of children in care and have the capacity to help them fulfil their potential—whatever their starting point. Clause 20 will make sure that there is a designated teacher in every school to give children in care the encouragement and personal support they need to realise their talents. Clause 14 will require local authorities to make arrangements for an independent, trained volunteer to be appointed to visit any looked-after child if it is in their interests. As I said earlier, we want more looked-after children to set their hearts on going to university, and to achieve that ambition. We know that financial barriers can also be a deterrent, so clause 21 will make a bursary available, of a minimum of £2,000, for every child in care who goes to university.

Tim Loughton: We certainly welcome the Bill. This is another year and another children's Bill, and, as with previous such legislation aimed at protecting vulnerable children, we will support it. This latest and long-awaited Bill deals with probably the most vulnerable group of children and young people in the UK—those in the care system. As the Minister has rightly said, it has been a scandal for too long, and remains so, that the treatment of, and outcomes for, children in the care system are woefully poor. Those children have been the victims of systemic neglect and of an institutionalised paucity of expectations for too many years, and it is vital that the Bill marks a major turning point in reversing that.
	I welcome what the Minister has said about the change of culture that is required, and I share her praise for social workers and foster carers, many of whom have lobbied us today about their vital and dedicated work. Some 61,000 children are in care in England and Wales, 42 per cent. of whom will return to their families within six months. However, we should not forget the estimated 350,000 adults who have spent part or all of their childhood in foster or residential care in this country. For many of them, the experience will become a generational legacy, as their own children end up in the care system, which happens all too often.
	We have heard about the scandal of outcomes for children in the care system in areas such as education. Despite the public service agreement targets, the priority action toolkits for key stage 4 looked-after children, the Education Protects programme, life chances funds and so on, the achievement of children in the care system on basic measures such as the achievement of five good GCSEs is still too poor. Worse still—the Minister alluded to this—the gap between children in the care system and mainstream children has widened over the past few years. All standards have gone up, as measured by GCSE achievement, but the gap in achievement between those who are and those who are not in the care system has widened. Furthermore, the increase in achievement has not been nearly as fast for those in the care system as for all children, which is deeply worrying. In addition, children in the care system are more than 10 times more likely to be excluded from school. Some 33 per cent. of them end up not in education, employment or training; just 2 per cent. of them go on to university; and 27 per cent. of them have statements for special educational needs compared with just 3 per cent. of all children.
	The same thing is happening in the justice system. Some 25 per cent. of people in prisons came through the care system, and the figure is anything up to half of those in youth offender institutes. Such children are four times more likely to smoke, drink under age and take drugs, and last year, 9.5 per cent. of over-10s in the care system were cautioned for or convicted of an offence. Not doing something more urgently about this situation is a false economy, because by the age of 19 a persistent offender will have cost £164,000 every year. That figure includes the cost to the victim, the court costs, the cost of prison and benefits and the cost to social services, which is an enormous cost not only to society but, most importantly, to the individual involved.
	We must also consider teenage pregnancy rates—one in four women leaving care is either pregnant or already a mother—and health statistics. Children in the care system are more than five times more likely than children in general to have a diagnosable mental illness, and many still do not receive the health checks that they are supposed to receive within the first 14 days of coming into the care system. Some two thirds of those children will have at least one physical health complaint. Perhaps the most tragic and disturbing statistic is that last year no fewer than 100 children in the care system died, which was an increase on the figure of 95 in 2004. We often talk about children who are killed at the hands of their carers or parents—the relevant figure is about one or two a week—but more children are dying within the care system for a host of reasons.
	The system is there to protect those children from the ravages of deprivation and health inequalities, so those figures are deeply disturbing. The Bill is desperately required and very welcome, but there is an urgent need to translate its good intentions and good directions into actions and results. We will do everything possible to speed the Bill's implementation. It has enjoyed close and positive scrutiny and improvement in the other House. I pay tribute to Lord Adonis, who has great personal experience of children in care, to my noble Friend Baroness Morris of Bolton, who has great expertise in and dedication to this area, and to many other Lords who brought about constructive improvements to the original Bill. They, like the Minister, are all too aware of the challenges that we all face in helping children in the care system, because the effects of failure will impact on the whole of society and are not restricted to the cost of more than £2 billion a year of children in the looked-after system.
	We welcome much of the Bill, such as, for example, the rewriting of clauses 7 to 10, particularly in respect of the mechanics of placement and the preference for placement with extended family members, which should be, but is not, happening already. We also welcome the references to proximity placement, which has been discussed since Sir William Utting's report in 1997 suggested a 20-mile radius cap. Although kinship placements are supposed to be the preferred option in this country, only 1 per cent. of social worker-instigated placements ended up with kinship carers, compared with 45 per cent. in Denmark, for example.
	We need to maintain continuity of school and education. The poor outcomes are not surprising, given that the social exclusion unit reported that 29 per cent. of children had undergone three or more educational placements during secondary school and that 25 per cent. of children had been in six or more care placements during the same period. We also support the Bill's hierarchy of kinship care placements locally to retain a familiar environment. We are talking about providing appropriate foster carers locally or, ultimately, in a residential home, where the appropriate care can be made available, especially for those with complex needs.
	We recognise that residential children's homes, which look after about 6,500 children at the moment—they tend to look after older children—have a place. They may be more appropriate as the first port of call, but the average cost of some £2,100 a week in those residential homes is leading to some local authorities cutting placements, although those fees include contracting for psychiatric and other specialist services in many cases.
	We need to take on board the shortage of skilled foster carers as well. On any day in this country, 50,000 children are living with 43,000 different foster families. Just last month, local authorities said that they urgently need at least 5,250 more foster carers to come forward this year, with the worst shortages in Manchester and the north-west. That results in thousands of children being sent to residential homes or being forced to travel miles to temporary placements and siblings having to live apart from their brothers and sisters, according to the Fostering Network.
	We welcome the greater specifications for visiting children far away from home in the residential placement provisions contained in the Bill. We welcome all those measures, not least because many of them were included in the 2005 Conservative manifesto, "Action for Vulnerable Children".  [ Interruption. ] I am sure that hon. Members want to participate in the shared congratulations. As the Minister has rightly said, all of us have campaigned on those issues for many years. However, we must recognise that what counts is not just passing the Bill, but the effectiveness with which it is put into action, backed up by resources and implemented by professionals at the sharp end who are appropriately trained, appropriately motivated and free to get on with their jobs.
	This week, we remember yet again the death of Victoria Climbié more than eight years ago, because the social worker who was responsible for her welfare has had her appeal upheld by a tribunal, but how much have we actually learned post-Victoria Climbié? Is the whole system of children protection now in better shape to protect children from death and injury at the hands of parents or carers, or to give children the best second chance of a successful and stable upbringing when taken into care? If it is in better shape, why are so many children still dying before they can be taken into the care system or even after that? Is the system sufficiently flexible either in care or with the birth family?
	This is a good Bill. Lots of work has been done to improve it, but there are a number of areas where it can be made better and will stand a better chance of working in practice, and we will table amendments to that effect. I hope that the Government will continue to engage with us in a constructive manner, as they have in their lordships' House. In particular, we want an amendment that will put a welfare checklist at the forefront of the Bill. There are concerns that many of the measures in the Bill do not go far enough and that many local authorities will only do the minimum to comply, not least given the constraints on spending, because of all the other children protection requirements that the Government are rightly introducing, and the more thinly spread funding for children's centres, which are now competing for funding within children's services budgets.
	We suggest a checklist at the beginning of the Bill mirroring section 1 of the Children Act 1989, which forms the heart of that legislation and which remains an important benchmark today. For every case, the actions of the local authority or other agency that acts for looked-after children would be expected to measure up against a checklist of considerations designed to be in the best interests of individual children, and such bodies would be accountable for that.
	We will table an amendment to propose the post of a chief social worker. That measure was recommended by the Conservative party commission on social workers, which reported last October and which I chaired. Such a person would be the public face of social workers, akin to the chief medical officer or the chief veterinary officer. We have such an officer for animals, for goodness' sake, and we should have one for people who deal professionally with children as well. The officer would be directly responsible to the Secretary of State and advise on ways to promote the image and perceptions of social workers among the public and on how social workers can do a better job and be held accountable when that is not the case.
	Too often, the perception of a social worker is as someone whose first contact with a vulnerable family is the knock on the door to initiate proceedings for a child to be taken into care. They are caricatured as child catchers. Not only is that deeply demoralising and not in the interests of social workers, but it is certainly not in the interests of the children and vulnerable families with whom they work and with whom they need to establish a relationship of trust and empathy in difficult circumstances. Such a role is used in New Zealand, and I have had a long conversation with Marie Connolly, who is the chief social worker for New Zealand. There are signs that that post has done a lot of good for the perception and standing of social workers in that country.
	We revealed yesterday that one in five of the 76,000 social workers in this country have signed off work for 20 consecutive days or more in the past five years. That is not good for the profession, and it lies behind why we still have high vacancy rates. My local authority has vacancy rates of about 20 per cent. for child social workers., yet those people are absolutely integral to the success of child protection legislation and the Bill, and we need to do more to boost their position.
	We support the inclusion of new clause 7 in the Bill to extend the duties in respect of the welfare of children to the Border and Immigration Agency. That provision was proposed by my noble Friend Baroness Morris and passed in the House of Lords with a large majority against the Government, and we very much hope that the Government will not seek to remove it in Committee.
	We want more direction in the Bill. Wherever possible, and in accordance with the interests of the child, the default position should be that an extended family member is the priority for a placement. We want greater safeguards for children in care over the age of 16. As the Minister mentioned several times, it is absurd that the majority of children leave care at the age of 16 or 17, when they are facing most turbulence in their lives with exams at school, the possibility of getting a job and trying to sort out accommodation. Yet for our sons and daughters, with their birth family, that happens when they are at least 24. We look forward to a discussion with the Minister on that front. There has been some progress since the Children (Leaving Care) Act 2000, but 41 per cent. of children leave care by the age of 17.
	We need to give more focused, ongoing support. We need far tighter controls over multiple placements. We need greater specifications for the qualifications of responsible social workers who visit children placed out of the area, usually in children's homes—out of sight and out of mind in too many cases. That was supposed to happen already. Some of us took a delegation to see Lord Warner, the then Minister responsible, but it is still not happening in too many places. In my authority in West Sussex, it is estimated—it can only be an estimate—that more than 700 children have been placed in the care system by other authorities. That compares with 42 children placed by West Sussex out of county—in Kent, the figure is estimated to be 1,250. Yet the local children's service department, the local police, the local council or the local justice system must pick up the pieces when things go wrong. That notification should be happening; it is not happening, and it must happen in the interests of all those involved.
	Clear concerns have been expressed by the National Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders, which produced a survey showing that 81 per cent. of looked-after children appearing in court in those areas where they were placed out of their home authority did so without the prior knowledge of the local youth offending teams. Again, that is an absolute travesty.
	We welcome the inclusion in the Bill of a designated teacher responsible for promoting the welfare of looked-after children. Again, that should be happening already—if it is not happening, it must happen, and the guidance must be followed. We also want a designated governor to oversee that teacher and ensure that the governing body is fully behind the new role, and we shall table amendments to that effect.
	We will table amendments stipulating that incentive payments cannot be paid to local authorities to increase adoption numbers, which is a perverse incentive that we cautioned against during the consideration of the Adoption and Children Act 2002. One has only to look at the extraordinary discrepancies between the number of adoption placements in certain authorities and the Minister's admission that those payments had been made to question why that perverse incentive still exists. In Committee, I will quote the Minister's written answers to my parliamentary questions, which show that those payments, which are not in the interests of children, have been made.
	We also want to give greater powers to foster carers, so that they can take on the role of as normal a parent as possible. We want them to have the authority, without having to refer back to the social worker, to say whether a child can have a sleepover with a mate from school or go on a school trip. At the moment, much of that must be delegated back to the social worker. We need foster carers, many of whom are long-term foster carers, to be able to play the role of the pushy parent—a figure whom those children lack and so desperately need in the place of a birth parent.
	We need to give foster carers greater powers by sending out a clear message from the Government to local authorities to back them. Similarly, we need safeguards to ensure that foster carers do not become the victims of vexatious allegations by difficult children. There needs to be a balance so that children are protected. As we heard from foster carers again today, too many vexatious complaints against them result in their being instantly suspended and their allowances' being suspended too. We need to get the balance right.
	In our amendments, we will return to the thorny subject of private fostering. It was mentioned and recommended by Sir William Utting in 1997 and by some of us in amendments to the Adoption and Children Act 2002. It was mentioned in my private Member's Bill in 2003 and again in 2004, when the Minister came up with a sunset clause that the Bill will extend and that we will try to abolish. Surely, now is the time at long last to implement a proper legal requirement for the registration of private foster placements, given that the voluntary scheme has yielded only a relatively small number of cases. Too many private fostering schemes go on at the moment without the knowledge of local authorities and without proper safeguards for vulnerable children, as we have seen in certain tragic cases over the past few years.
	We also want to see better safeguards on birth parents' passing on medical records for adopted children. Again, there are too many cases of children who have been through the care system falling foul of what turns out to be a congenital illness. If the medical records had been available from their birth parents, preventive action might have been taken.
	We also want to explore how we can get greater transparency in the family courts, which remains a serious bone of contention. We also want to see greater rights of sibling contact, if children cannot be placed together. A National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children survey showed that 40 per cent. of children and young people said that they did not have enough contact with siblings. That evidence was backed up by A National Voice and the Who Cares? Trust. Such contact should not merely be allowed by local authority, but facilitated and promoted. I am sure that many other considerations will come up in Committee and I greatly look forward to debating children's issues with the Minister again.
	Most of this is not rocket science. There are already many examples of good practice around the country. For example, a few months ago I opened the new Horizons education and achievement centre in Ealing. It is a fantastic institute manned by former care leavers who have been to university and come back and who now teach educational, computer and other skills to young people in the care system. It is no coincidence that 14 per cent. of children in care in Ealing now go on to university, which is substantially more than the national average.
	In Barnet, the authority has invested in a buddy system. Every child in the care system has a buddy who is an officer in the local authority, from the chief executive down. That officer looks out for them and asks the questions that a pushy parent would ask at a school parents evening or about health records. Barnet invested in its social work force some years ago. It invested to save, and it is now no coincidence that the vacancy rate for child social workers in Barnet is less than 4 per cent., which is one of the best in London.
	Other great examples of best practice include the Community Service Volunteers scheme—I think that the Minister has mentioned it. I declare an interest as a trustee of CSV. It has piloted the use of volunteer social workers in child protection in Bromley and Sunderland. The volunteers primarily support the parent with the stress of having their children on the register and the threat of their children being taken into care. They can establish more stability by helping parents to manage the heavy schedule of meetings with schools, social workers and health professionals, attending parenting classes and ensuring that children go to school or nursery, and they can help to organise a routine at home. When the approach was piloted in California, instances of child abuse fell by 80 per cent. The volunteers are viewed differently from social workers, who are metaphorically in uniform. They have a great role to play, and I hope that the legislation will allow the flexibility to promote similar schemes and the use of volunteers, whether through CSV or other organisations.
	Family support is key. As the Minister has said, we are talking about children and the care system, but we need to do an awful lot more to prevent children from entering the care system in the first place. The charity NCH, for example, has been running the Phoenix project, which I recently visited in Merton. The project works with families in crisis using a solution-focused therapy model of work. Support is offered for a period of three months, with all interventions regularly reviewed. When the work is completed, families are tracked after six months to see whether their progress has been maintained. The project consists of a rapid response team, an adolescent resource team, family group meetings and so on. It has found an enormous fall in the number of children who then go off the rails, thanks to the fact that those families have been kept together.
	Let me give a third example, which is another project by NCH in Fareham on intensive fostering. Intensive fostering has learned from the positive practice used in remand fostering of co-ordinating services around the young person. This tried and tested method has many proven benefits. Research by the British Association for Adoption and Fostering to evaluate the NCH's remand fostering scheme found that more than 70 per cent. of young people committed no offences during their placement despite persistently offending before and that all the young people were engaged in school, training or employment by the time that they left the placement. Intensive fostering has a great role to play, because it has been piloted and has been shown to work.
	Those are good schemes that are working, and we need the flexibility to promote more of them. Perhaps there is too great a focus on the child rather than on the problems undermining a family that might result in the loss of a child to the care system. We need to talk more about fostering families, rather than just fostering the child, and keeping families together wherever possible. We need greater flexibility and greater innovation.
	We must ensure that the work force is appropriately trained, motivated and free to get on with the job of looking after children at the sharp end. We need to end bureaucracy and the excessive aversion to risk that can culminate in perverse incentives to take more children into care rather than working preventively with families to keep them together. At the other end, the system hurries children aged over 16 out of the care system to free up social worker time and resources. That is likely to turn out to be a false economy as vulnerable young people slide back into the mire of the familiar problems that I described earlier.
	We also need to listen more and take note of children and young people. A report by the "What Makes the Difference?" project revealed that 40 per cent. of young people in care said that they rarely or never have a say in a placement, which is another great sign of weakness that we need to address and reverse.
	The Bill is a last chance for many in the care system whom we have failed for too long. Every two months' delay represents 1 per cent. of childhood with the child in the care system condemned to mediocrity and the likelihood of underachievement. That situation is simply not acceptable any more. It is an enormous waste to society as a whole, to us and, most of all, to the 61,000 children and young people in the care system for whom the failure to invest seriously in the problem has been a false economy for far too long.
	We should approach the Bill by asking ourselves whether the current system, or the proposals, would be good enough for our own children. If we cannot answer yes, we are not doing our job properly. For those reasons, we wish the Bill well and will engage positively with the Minister in Committee.

Hilary Armstrong: Before I start, I want to make it clear that I have a relationship with NCH that I have taken up again since I left government. I have been involved with the organisation for most of my life, although I took a more objective view, of course, while I was in government. I have been involved in the issue of children in care for many years and I trained as a family case workers many years ago, before several people who are taking part in the debate were born.
	I know that the Government have taken the issue of children in care very seriously, and have made a series of efforts to change the opportunities for such children. Indeed, they have significantly increased investment; I am surprised that the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) did not acknowledge that. The reality is that significantly more investment has been made, both directly in the care system and in a series of other ways—through the work that my right hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Frank Dobson) initiated early on in our time in office on the Quality Protects programme, through investment in communities, through programmes such as Sure Start, through increasing support for parents and through the family intervention projects that the Government have supported.
	However, it must be said that we are still not content with the results. That is why the Bill is particularly well timed. It allows us to take account of what has already been done, but it also says to all involved in the care system, "Have another look, because despite increased investment and increased opportunities, things are not working sufficiently well for the most vulnerable children in our society."
	Two years ago, I was asked by the then Prime Minister, Tony Blair, to have another look at social exclusion. One of the issues that he asked me to consider was the care system. He was particularly arrested by the poor educational outcomes. For me, it was a good opportunity to look again at what we could do really to move things on again. There are lots of points that I could make, but many other Members want to speak in this relatively short debate, so I will confine my comments to some of the critical issues, although other issues raised by Members, including my right hon. Friend the Minister for Children, Young People and Families, are very important, too.
	In particular, I looked at why we were not getting the results that other systems were getting, although we spent more per head on children in care than others did. There are two or three points to raise. The first is early intervention and preventive work. The Government are now much more clearly focused and targeted on that. As my right hon. Friend the Minister has heard me say many times, early intervention work has to be clearly focused and to systematically pick up the most disadvantaged children and families, and it must be rigorous. There are a number of programmes doing such work now. I am delighted that last week, the Government increased the number of areas that can benefit from nurse-family partnerships to 90, from the 10 that were initiated last year. That is proving to be the most effective programme worldwide, not only according to the cost-benefit analysis, but in terms of its impact on the most vulnerable children and their chance to have opportunities when they grow up and to not face the level of disadvantage that too many children do.
	Generally, we have to be much more rigorous in picking up on the most vulnerable. That is challenge to several people in the House who object to data sharing. I believe that it should be a criminal offence not to share data concerning the most vulnerable, because not to share those data is to say, "We think your individual liberties are more important than your opportunity to prosper and succeed." The two things get confused for the very young child. My right hon. Friend the Minister has problems ensuring decent data sharing. When we go to schools, teachers say, "We know which children will have difficulties as soon as they first come in," yet the data are not systematically and rigorously shared in a way that would ensure good intervention right from the beginning. Hon. Members can tell that I feel passionate about the issue; I will move on.
	There are also preventive services to consider. The hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham mentioned NCH's work on family intervention. The Government have taken hold of, and extended, NCH and other projects. There will now be about 50 family intervention projects across the country. There are other ways in which we should intervene at the very earliest stage to give a family support, so that children do not end up having to be placed in care, for whatever reason. There are good programmes that we know work, and we have to get on with them in every area of the country. NCH makes a powerful point about children on the edge of care in its briefing for Members: good, preventive services involving the whole family can make a huge difference and can help to ensure that children do not end up in the care system.
	In my second look at children in care, I became convinced that work-force issues are another area in which we have not got things right, so I am pleased that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families is chairing a working party on the subject. I encourage him to be ambitious. Members present on both sides of the Chamber have considered the example of the social pedagogy model in Europe. Using that model would mean ensuring much better, longer training for people who work with our children, but I find it perverse that we continue to accept that sometimes the least qualified and trained people are those who work with the most vulnerable. As a result, they frequently do not take hold of a situation because they are fearful of it, and because they know that they do not have the quality, reserves, training or strategies to deal with whatever problem comes up.
	When there is a problem that, in this country, would frequently mean someone calling the police, in Denmark, Germany and Finland, the worker deals with the problem. Obviously, if it is a really serious problem, the police have to be called in, but frequently it is not, and the worker deals with it. I went to two or three children's homes in Germany where the worker would automatically do an hour's work with the young person when they came in from school, to make sure that the day was understood and that the young person knew what would happen the next day, and to support the young person in doing their homework. That was not considered anything special. An educational worker was not brought in to do that work; the child's key worker—the person who worked with them most consistently—did it automatically. I know that the Government are looking at the social pedagogy model, and I encourage them to be brave, to start pilots that involve social pedagogues, and to monitor the effects.
	A point that struck me powerfully and that has made me stop and think a great deal is the relationship with the family once a young person is in care. In this country, there is the odd example of good work in that regard, but that good work is not nearly sufficiently systematic, and does not nearly take place often enough. Too many of the young people who have been or who are in care whom I meet are frustrated that they have so little contact with their natural family. I found that out way back when I was a social worker. Even if the relationship with the family has been destructive—even if it has been really poor—young people none the less want to know about their family. They want to know how to deal with them. They want to know who their mother and father are. They want contact. Too often, we say that that is too difficult and that they would be better off without it, or we just do not do the hard work to make sure that they are placed somewhere where that will be easy.
	When I was in Germany and Denmark, it was not thought out of the ordinary if the parents came for breakfast or lunch, or visited in the evening. That was the norm, and the work force saw their role as negotiating the space between the child and the family. When the child leaves care, even if there has not been any contact, they go into environments that are not controlled for them. They go into a different environment, and many children seek to re-establish contact with their family, and they experience a series of different emotions, including anger, frustration and concern.

Helen Southworth: I welcome all the steps taken in the Bill, but I think the most important comment that has been made about it is that it represents a radical step change in ambitions. I am sure the Minister will not be surprised to hear that I intend to begin by talking about the ambitions that we have for our children. What has been said today suggests that our ambition is not just to keep them safe and healthy; we want them to be happy, and then, when we see them safe, healthy and happy, we want them to achieve things. We want them to develop their own potential and become fully human beings, fully part of society, and fully achieving. At every step that the Bill takes, we must retain that ambition for the children whom it seeks to support.
	It is extremely welcome that the Bill places a statutory duty on the Secretary of State to promote the well-being of children in England. That is indeed a radical step change. It represents a monumental difference in the way in which we in the House behave, because if our Secretary of State has that duty, we as Members of Parliament must have a duty to ensure that it is carried out.
	The Minister will, again, not be surprised to learn that I want to press the ambition for children who are in care and leaving care to have the right of access to full and proper support until they are 21. If it is appropriate for them to stay with a foster carer they should be able to do so, but if that is not appropriate they should have alternative proper, effective support. The Bill gives us an opportunity to stretch out and to aim high. An ambition must be seized when the opportunity comes, and we in the House must take the opportunity now to agree that until the age of 21, young people need access to support. The Minister said at the beginning of her speech that most young people do not leave home and stop receiving parental support until the age of 24, so specifying the age of 21 does not strike me as over-ambitious.
	Members have commented on how poor educational outcomes are among children in care in comparison with other children. Only 12 per cent. of looked-after children achieve five GCSEs or the equivalent, compared with 59 per cent. nationally, and only 6 per cent. of children who were looked after at the age of 16 had entered higher education by the age of 19. In 2006, 35 per cent.—one third—of looked-after pupils did not sit any GSCE examinations or GNVQ equivalents.
	Some children take a little longer than others to achieve success, perhaps because they have rather more problems to overcome than others. The time when children are sitting GCSEs or A-levels is also the time when those in care are most likely to be leaving it. A quarter of children leave care in their 16th year, at a time when they are sitting exams. Very few children—a tiny fraction of the total— are still in care at the age of 18, but how many are still sitting A-levels when they have reached their 18th birthdays? For most children that is not particularly unusual, but for children in care it means that they will no longer have access to full and proper support from a local authority.
	Fostering Network has given me the example of a foster parent fostering a young person who arrived as a teenager. He had suffered significant trauma but had managed to deal with it, had settled and was beginning to succeed. This young man became head boy at his school and was studying for A-levels in the hope of going to university. When he turns 18, however, all support from the local authority will cease, at the time when he will be doing his A-levels. In order to provide stability for him, his foster carer is spending almost £20,000 of her own money to convert the loft so that he can stay with her while she fosters other children. That is a phenomenal commitment, but she should not have to do it, and many foster carers could not do it. That story provides an incredibly convincing argument, however, for making sure that young people can access effective support from somebody who is totally committed to their success.
	It is great that people will have access to advisers, but what about somebody they can phone up at night or at the weekend so that they can tell them about things? That is what makes the real difference when people are looking for support. What about that tiny fraction of people in care who go to university, and who need somewhere to go home to, or someone to ring up when they have a problem? Also, what about those other young people who should be going to university, or on to vocational training or further education? We must make sure that they have access, too. We do not need pilot projects to tell us that people do better if they have got someone backing them up. All Members of this House know that people do not make it on their own. We have a duty to make sure that we give these young people access to proper support when they need it, especially when they have had a bad start anyway and they need our intervention more than others.
	When Fostering Network first came to talk to me about this, I thought I should be focusing on some of the other cases that people had been bringing to my attention, such as the 17-year-old who was pregnant and very vulnerable, had been placed in a hostel for homeless people and been told she could not get accommodation until the baby was born, or the 15-year-old I was made aware of who was taken out of foster care and instead was put into bed-and-breakfast accommodation. I thought I should be focusing on them, but then I realised that I was suffering from a lack of ambition, because all these young people should be getting access to support up to the age of 21. They all need the same thing. We must stretch our ambitions, because if we do not, we will not deliver for the more vulnerable children who are in care and who are finding it difficult and do not have people to intervene for them. I ask the Minister to address this matter with serious intent so that we can bring it forward.
	We should not rely on pilots, but instead act on what we already know and use the evidence that there already is. In 2006, Joseph Rowntree research showed that 36 per cent. of young people reported being homeless at some time in the year after leaving care, and the Rainer Home Alone report found that almost one in six care leavers had unsuitable accommodation. We should give them access up to the age of 21 to someone who can help them get into proper accommodation and do all the things that a mum or dad or friendly relative can do when young people are trying to set themselves up in their own home and work out how to live in an adult world.
	The Minister will not be surprised that I also wish to bring up the matter of support for children in care who cannot handle it and who have run away. When Lancashire police set up their "mountains into molehills" project, they used some very effective computer systems to track the reports that they were getting about children who had gone missing. They found that they were spending more than £6 million a year on investigating reports and that each report was costing them in the region of £1,000 to investigate, and when they did further analysis they found that the majority of the reports were about young people under 18 and the majority of those were about people in the care of the local authority who were consistently running away. One young girl did so 78 times—a cost of £78,000 in police time that did not benefit her. However, when the police got together with the local authority and the care homes and identified which children were at risk, and started working with the care homes to do something about why they were running away and to deal with that, running away incidents reduced radically. We have had the same finding from a number of different authorities; Leicester police force found exactly the same thing. What they are telling us is that if we work effectively to identify children at risk and then work with care homes to identify why this is happening, we can put it right and prevent these young people from getting involved in all the things that some of them get involved in. The evidence to the all-party group that held hearings on this issue showed that many of those young people were not just running away from something; they were being targeted by predatory adults and running to something. They were being groomed—and these were children in the care of a local authority.
	I want to follow up the intervention from my hon. Friend the Member for Stockport (Ann Coffey), who has been working very actively on this issue, by asking the Minister a question. Will he ensure that inspection processes involve reports of instances of running away and of assaults, and that they take proper account of what is going on in care homes and of whether these things are being dealt with effectively?
	Today, we have had the wonderful launch of the young runaways action plan, which is giving support for all young runaways, but unless we make sure that care homes and their staff understand that they have a key role to play and that it will be supported but also monitored, we will not make the proper change that we can make, if we are ambitious, for children in care.
	Finally, will my hon. Friend the Minister give some further thought to children in custody? We have had quite a focus on the fact that a child in care is more likely to end up in custody than in university. I have had what is in many ways the privilege of working with some of the people at the young offenders institute in Thorn Cross, in my constituency. I have been really impressed by the dedication of the staff there, who have been working extremely hard to make sure that young offenders in that institute are in the first instance safe, but also have the opportunity to understand why they are there and how they can stay out in future. Those are absolutely crucial things. I would be far happier, as everybody here would, if we could be far more effective, so that young people do not get themselves into that position. However, I want to know how the Bill is going properly to support vulnerable young people in custody, so that they have access to a social worker who is not travelling a long distance and is perhaps unable to get there, but who is there and can develop a relationship with them, and who can be interested in and supportive of them in the long term.
	I also want to know how we are going to ensure that young offenders have access to the kind of things being done at Thorn Cross, where the Cheshire fire service has a fire cadet programme. Young people learn about social responsibility, meet role models whom they can look up to, and are getting involved in doing good in their local community. It has been a very effective programme. As effective, in many ways, has been the programme from the Halle orchestra, which has been working with young people and involving them in music. When they are in a position to leave the institute, it tries to match them up with a youth orchestra or a band, so that they have a different peer group. Such things are really important in making a difference for young people.
	Thorn Cross has developed lots of relationships in the local community, allowing young offenders opportunities to use some of the skills that they are learning. Some of them have never had any opportunity for education before, and they are getting NVQs at the young offender's institute and then going out into the community and helping voluntary organisations, thereby putting something back in. This is a really important issue and I am raising it so determinedly because we have got to be ambitious to protect the safety of young people in custody, who are young people in care, and to provide them with every help and encouragement to stop offending.
	The report by Anne Owers, Her Majesty's chief inspector of prisons, which was published in February, stated:
	"The juvenile unit at Thorn Cross is the only open establishment for under-18s in the prison system. It is also the only juvenile establishment that this inspectorate has assessed as performing well across all four of our key tests—safety, respect, activity and resettlement. It is therefore particularly ironic that this will be its last inspection, as the Youth Justice Board has decided to withdraw funding and remove under-18s from Thorn Cross. This is therefore an obituary, rather than a report on progress."
	She continued:
	"This inspection showed that the Thorn Cross juvenile unit was a beacon of good practice in working with a small number of young people and preparing them for the transition to life outside prison. This is a model that should be built on, not abandoned. It may be that this would be better delivered through smaller units in a number of locations — and this is something that the Youth Justice Board is now reviewing. However, to close Thorn Cross before there are any concrete plans for alternative open units, and largely for immediate financial reasons, is both disappointing and retrograde."
	I hope that the Bill will ensure that far fewer young people from care go into custody and that there is every opportunity for any young person who has committed an offence, in order to prevent any future offending. I recommend the Bill.

John Bercow: It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Warrington, South (Helen Southworth), to whose indefatigable and outstanding work, in particular on behalf of runaway children, I should like to pay the warmest possible tribute. I was delighted also to hear the hon. Member for North-East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel) reiterate her commitment to securing a ban on smacking, and for the avoidance of doubt I can say that if such an amendment to the Bill is tabled, I, for one, will be pleased to support it.
	I hope that hon. and right hon. Members will understand if I reserve my most effusive words for my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mr. Timpson), who is newly arrived in this place. It is customary, on occasions such as this, that hon. and right hon. Members, irrespective of party, should reflect upon the strengths of the Member and of the speech. In these circumstances, that poses no difficulty for me, because I echo the generous but thoroughly justified tributes that have already been paid to my hon. Friend. He spoke with wit, with eloquence, with passion and with wisdom— wisdom and discernment born of a direct experience of the care system, a hands-on involvement that gave him the knowledge that allowed him authoritatively and pithily to contribute to debate on the Bill. I, for one, welcome him as a new colleague and look forward with interest and respect to his future contributions to our proceedings, and I suspect that I will not be alone in thinking in those terms.
	I welcome the Bill, which is an excellent measure. Doubtless, as so often these days, I shall contribute in my non-partisan way, which will provoke great suspicion and a certain amount of excoriating criticism from people who think that it is absolutely to be expected that one should try to behave in as tribal a manner as possible. For my own part, I have really no interest in doing so; when a measure is good, I believe in saying so. I think that this is a good measure, in terms both of purpose and, predominantly, of content, and the Government should be applauded for what is, unquestionably, an advance.
	I hope that the Minister for Children, Young People and Families, who knows the very high esteem in which I hold her, will not take it amiss if I choose, therefore, to focus my remarks not on the excellent contents of the Bill, about which much has been said, but on those additions to it, or amendments of it, that in my view could make it better still.
	I must say that I enthusiastically endorse what has been said by the hon. Member for Blackpool, North and Fleetwood (Mrs. Humble), which was underlined in interventions by the hon. Member for Stourbridge (Lynda Waltho) and others, including the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke), about the merits of—indeed, the requirement for—the insertion of a commitment to independent advocacy. That is not, in any sense, to belittle or dismiss the important improvements in arrangements in relation to independent reviewing officers. Much thought has been given to that subject, it has been open to consultation, Ministers have reflected on the matter, and Lord Adonis conducted himself in the other place with a diligence and breadth of mind that most of us who know him have come to expect from him.
	I simply put it to the Minister of State that the role of the independent reviewing officer is important, but it is discrete role. The role of the independent visitor is important, but it is a separate function. The role of an independent advocate should be established, valued, supported, extended and made an entitlement for people in care because of its own merits. It seems to me that the significance of the role of the advocate is that he or she would be genuinely separate from, uninfluenced by and independent of the decision-making process that his or her services on behalf of the child or young people could hope to influence.
	Ministers have said that, yes, they can see the merit of advocacy, but they seem to be slightly timid and apprehensive about making a commitment to independent advocacy an entitlement. The argument has already been powerfully made. I think it could be contended quite forcefully—I am not a lawyer; I say that as a matter of some very considerable pride—that article 12 of the United Nations convention on the rights of the child would probably make a potent case in support of the establishment of independent advocacy. Moreover, I feel that particularly strongly in relation to those children in care who have special educational needs. The House will be conscious of the fact that that is something to which I attach great importance.
	There has been a litany of statistics already in the debate; I simply want to underline one figure that was included in an earlier speech: 28 per cent. of children in care have statements of special educational needs, as compared with 3 per cent. of the school population as a whole. The hon. Member for Blackpool, North and Fleetwood, in a compelling speech, gave the example of those children who have communication difficulties. They might have learning disabilities; they might also suffer from severe physical disability, but they might not. I want to underline the fact that children or young people with speech, language or communication difficulties of a significant intensity should be regarded as suffering from a disability every bit as anxiety provoking, debilitating and potentially life or potential limiting as would be a physical impairment or a mental disability. For children who probably know what they want, know what they need, know what their interests are, know what they want to be done for them and know how they wish to contribute to its being done to be unable themselves to articulate it is quite the most breathtakingly frustrating state of affairs. For such children, the right to independent advocacy could make a decisive difference.
	The Minister of State has probably heard me make the point before that in relation to special educational needs—I respect the fact that the Government do not agree with me on this point—I feel that local authorities are in a virtually omnipotent position, in the sense that they assess, decide, pay for and more often than not provide what the child gets by way of special educational needs provision. My own view—it is shared by some although not by all contributors to the special educational needs debate—is that it would be wise to separate the assessment of need from the funding of provision. Whether or not that is desirable, I put it to right hon. and hon. Members that, if the average child with SEN is in a bit of a difficulty in negotiating with either a recalcitrant or simply a cash-strapped local authority, we should think how much worse it is for a child in care who does not even have the advantage of a parent or parents articulating, advocating, agitating, lobbying and campaigning on his or her behalf.
	In those circumstances, there is a compelling case for independent advocacy, and I would go further, as did the hon. Members for Stourbridge and for Blackpool, North and Fleetwood, in saying let there be an extension of looked-after status from those formerly described as being in care to those who are permanently resident a significant distance from home within the education system. Decisions will be made on their behalf. Events are unfolding. Judgments have to be made. Advocates are required. It is not too late for the Government, during the passage of the Bill, to reconsider their position.
	What I am bothered about above all is the concept of the unchallenged omnipotence of the public authority. Against that, one needs a counterbalance.

David Kidney: I must be brief. Like other Members, I heap praise on my noble Friend Lord Adonis, who simply played a blinder in the other place. He presented a decent Bill well enough, but he listened carefully to constructive and, I thought, convincing arguments made by peers and, as a result, he agreed to make numerous changes that improved the Bill immensely. He made changes such as placing the new duty on the Secretary of State to promote well-being, and the new duty on local authorities to plan a range of accommodation for those in care; and he agreed to the right to breaks from caring for disabled children. Those were major improvements; I just want more in this Chamber.
	I chair the associate parliamentary group for looked-after children and care leavers, the ethos of which is to bring looked-after children and care leavers to Parliament, and enable people to speak directly to politicians and other decision makers. As chair, I hear the same complaints over and over again: drift in care planning; too many moves in care; the knock-on effect of educational under-achievement; unmet health care needs; poor preparation for leaving care; too many children leaving care inappropriately at 16; a lack of suitable accommodation after leaving care; and the basic fault of not listening to looked-after children, and not giving effect to what they say. Although the faces before me change, the messages continue.
	Understandably, young people ask why, when we have identified the problems, politicians do not do anything about them. I therefore hope that the Bill provides an opportunity to do what they want us to do. The Government have not been inactive for 11 years—in fact, they deserve a lot of praise for what they have done for children in the care system. I remember the Quality Protects initiative; today, we have the brilliant Care Matters agenda; and, of course, there is the Children (Leaving Care) Act 2000. More generally—and it is important to place looked-after children in the context of all children—we have had the excellent Every Child Matters agenda and the children's plan.
	At the end of March, the Government, the Association of Directors of Children's Services and the Local Government Association published an implementation plan called "Care Matters: Time to deliver for children in care", which provides all the tools and advice that people could possibly need to do a good job, and that brings me to the Bill, which gives them the job to do.
	For me, the starting point is to avoid the use of care if at all possible in every case. That is not just about early intervention, as we have heard tonight, but about a child-friendly society. It is about eradicating child poverty, and making our communities much more supportive of parents and the difficult work that they do in bringing up children. If care is necessary, we should try to make it involve short-lived interventions that result in the successful return of children to their families. I use the world "family" in the broadest sense of the term, including kinship care. In particular, like other Members, I support those brilliant grandparents who cares not only for their children, when they thought that they had seen the last of them as adults, but for their grandchildren.
	I detect in clause 36 a helpful little step in the right direction in respect of the entitlement to apply for a residence order, but what is really needed to make care, such as kinship care, work effectively is properly structured support, including the ability of agencies to pay carers for bringing up children. I welcome in clause 24 the slight change in respect of cash payments that can be made to such people, but I am talking about help with the legal costs of getting the residence order and with the social security benefits that are constantly denied to the grandparents but that the parents would have received, and with all the other obstacles that are placed in people's way when they are doing brilliant work on society's behalf.
	There is also no explicit provision for sibling contact. Although the local authority is required to allow contact, the authority is not required to facilitate it. Roger Morgan, the children's rights director for England, who has been mentioned already, recently published the views of 433 children on improving care standards. The fourth main recommendation from the children was:
	"Care placements should be designed so that brothers and sisters can stay together".
	The Bill carries across the provisions in the Children Act 1989 relating to a duty on local authorities to accommodate together siblings
	"so far as is reasonably practicable".
	However, we must look at using this legislative opportunity to strengthen the duty on local authorities both to place children together, unless it is not in their best interests to do so, and to support sibling contact as part of their corporate parenting function.
	Children may go into care from an abusive or neglectful environment. Distress, emotional trauma or more profound mental health issues might reasonably be anticipated, and those problems must be identified and addressed. The choice of an appropriate placement depends on that assessment, and work that is done early to provide mental health care or to promote emotional well-being will often make a major difference to a child's life. The National Children's Bureau reminds us in its briefing—perhaps surprisingly—of the many physical illnesses and conditions that are missed when children entering care are assessed. Those factors convinced me that effort and money must be invested in the physical and mental health care and emotional well-being of looked-after children to ensure sufficiently high standards of care for all looked-after children. On the question of how to achieve that, perhaps we can debate in Committee whether more is needed through the letter of the law, through regulations or through guidance.
	On the question of foster care or residential care, two out of three children who go into public care are fostered. The majority of fostered children return to their own families within a year—clearly, a very successful outcome. However, foster care is not the right solution for all looked-after children; it depends on the assessment of each child's individual needs. When foster care is the right choice, none the less, there must be an adequate supply of foster carers to meet the demand—that is, not only enough foster carers to meet total demand, but enough to match individual needs. Issues about pay and support for foster carers also need to be addressed if more children are to enjoy positive experiences in foster care placements. Support should encompass a system for investigating allegations against foster carers that is fair to complainants and fair to the foster carers themselves.
	Some constraints are beyond the control of foster carers, such as local authorities pushing children out of care at 16 and the current legal age limit of 18 for a foster care placement. We politicians must do more to remove those constraints. Children in residential care were often, in their early lives, powerless in their families, so they may depend on their residential care worker to be their best advocate. All social care staff should be given professional development and support to enable them to be the most effective and efficient advocates for the children in their care. Their work must support what is done to intervene in, and help, families, even before children become legally subject to the duties of local authorities.
	It is vital that we make social care work more attractive so that we can get away from the current situation, with which we are all familiar, of a high threshold of intervention in families because of a lack of overall social care capacity. That, in turn, should help to prevent the high turnover that such children often experience.
	I have been asked to be brief, so I shall make just two additional points. First, many Members have called for the support of advocacy for children, and I very strongly support it. Secondly, it is absolutely terrible that youngsters are taken out of care without preparations for independent living, or taken out of care at 18 and put into a home that is not at all suitable for them. Many then fall into the kind of difficulties that we have heard about, involving all the depressing statistics cited at the beginning of the debate.
	This Bill is our one opportunity to get things right for the next generation and, I hope, for all the future generations of children who will come into contact with the care system. Let us ensure that we do good job of it.

Maria Miller: We have heard throughout the debate agreement on both sides of the House that every child needs a stable, secure and caring environment in which to grow and thrive, never more so than when they are unable to live with their own parents and the duty to care for them falls on to the state.
	The reasons why children come into care differ, but for two out of three looked-after children the main reason why social services first get involved in a child's life is abuse or neglect. Such children are already vulnerable, and the support that they are given should provide the stability and security that they need. It is important to note that the majority of children in care are aged between 10 and 15, which is not an easy period of life for many children and certainly not for those subject to the turmoil of going into care.
	As my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) has said, we welcome the opportunity that the Bill presents to shape important improvements in the way in which looked-after children are cared for and to help them get the best possible start in life. It is our duty to ensure that the Bill goes as far as possible to address the many failings that hon. Members have referred to in their contributions.
	I join the hon. Member for Stafford (Mr. Kidney) in congratulating the other place on many of the changes already made to the Bill. Government amendments in the other place have helped to clarify the need for an in-built presumption of the promotion of stability in every child's life, with the child's family continuing to play a pivotal role wherever possible. Family remains important, not only because family relationships are some of the most important in our lives, but because last year more than 40 per cent. of looked-after children returned to live with their parents. That enduring relationship remains important, and the Government amendments in the other place recognised that more needs to be done in the Bill to spell out the important role of the family in the hierarchy of options that a child has for placement, as set out in clause 8.
	The clause also highlights the need for local authorities to ensure that placements allow children to live near home, that education is not disrupted and that a child lives with sisters or brothers, if they are also in care. Just as the Bill urges all involved in the care of looked-after children to raise their aspirations, the Government need to continue to raise their aspirations. As the Bill proceeds through Committee, we will seek the Government's support for further amendments.
	The debate in the other place led to some important amendments, and I pay tribute to the work done by my noble Friend Baroness Morris of Bolton, whose successful amendment of the Bill in the other place has resulted in a clear and robust statutory duty on the Border and Immigration Agency to safeguard and promote the welfare of children who pass through its care by amending the Children Act 2004. A number of other Government amendments were added in response to important concerns expressed by the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee and the Grand Committee. Today's debate suggests a great deal of scope for the Government to go further.
	We have heard several important contributions from all parties, but none were more important than that of my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mr. Timpson), who took the opportunity afforded by today's debate to make his maiden speech. I congratulate him on an outstanding maiden speech; he spoke movingly about his predecessor and her unstinting commitment to this place and her constituents in Crewe and Nantwich. In the best spirit of maiden speeches, he brought to life the vibrant nature of his constituency, of which, as many hon. Members noted, we have first-hand experience. He brought to life its history and its potential, which I am sure will be realised through his hard work and commitment. It was most appropriate that he made his maiden speech on children in care, something of which he and his family have extensive experience. He spoke of some of the 86 children that his family fostered while he was growing up, and I am sure that his contribution has already demonstrated the value that he will bring to this place both from his family life and from his experience as a family lawyer.
	We heard an important contribution from the right hon. Member for North-West Durham (Hilary Armstrong), who pointed out that the Government have made a significant investment in children in care in recent years. In the other place, the noble Lord Adonis confirmed that between 2001 and 2005 £230 million was spent to support children in residential care and £330 million was spent to support children in foster care. As the right hon. Lady pointed out, despite that investment only modest improvements, which do not match the investment, have been made. For example, the proportion of children who get five or more GCSEs has improved by only 3 per cent.
	The right hon. Lady also mentioned the Government's need to focus on those most in need and her work on social exclusion. I hope that her words resonate with the Under-Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, the hon. Member for Cardiff, West (Kevin Brennan), who will reply to the debate, because she is right that the Government have not taken the action that is needed to focus on children most in need. I have highlighted that, especially in the context of Sure Start, for which the Government have recognised the need to improve and increase the number of outreach workers. However, there is evidence of worrying cuts.

Maria Miller: I thank the right hon. Lady for her intervention but, as she pointed out, investment is not enough, because we need reform to ensure that the money is made to work hard.
	My hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham made a characteristically excellent contribution, which showed his commitment to and long-standing work on the subject. I want to highlight his comments about the widening gap between looked-after children and their peers. Many hon. Members referred to those worrying statistics throughout the debate and the cost that that presents to the state if those children, left without the support they require, enter the offenders' system. Indeed, my hon. Friend pointed out that persistent offenders individually cost the state some £164,000 a year, and perhaps we need to take more account of that cost when we evaluate the importance of the measure.
	My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard) made a valuable contribution and raised an issue that other hon. Members did not mention—the problems that face those who wish to adopt a child in this country and the apparently overwhelming influence of a child's ethnic background when local authorities judge parents' potential suitability. The House will listen carefully to the Under-Secretary's response to my right hon. and learned Friend's contribution, because my right hon. and learned Friend has highlighted an issue about which hon. Members of all parties are deeply concerned.
	The hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke) drew attention to several problems for disabled children in long-term residential places. I am sure that that will be covered more fully in Committee.
	Two hon. Members emphasised the importance of independent advocacy. My hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (John Bercow) spoke with his usual thoughtfulness and eloquence about the additions that he would like to make to the Bill, and he highlighted independent advocacy as one issue that requires further examination. He stressed the unique role that independent advocates play in supporting looked-after children and their value for the more than one in four children in care who also have special educational needs. The hon. Member for Blackpool, North and Fleetwood (Mrs. Humble) also raised that issue.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Upminster (Angela Watkinson) raised, at the tail end of the debate, the important issues of accommodation for those leaving care and of respite care. She also mentioned something that clearly requires careful discussion in Committee, namely the challenges that the Bill sets local authorities. Many hon. Members have local authorities that do well in looking after the needs of children in care. My local authority in Hampshire has great experience of kinship care. I learned that that is not available in many parts of the country, but we take it for granted in my part of Hampshire. We need to ensure that local authorities can meet the challenges that the Bill creates for them.
	I want briefly to pick up on something that the Minister for Children, Young People and Families, who opened the debate, said about health inequalities. She reminded the House that half of all children in care suffer from a mental health problem. I hope that that issue will be taken up either by the Under-Secretary when he closes the debate or in further debate, because only a fraction of those 27,000 children in care aged between five and 17 who have a mental health problem have any hope of receiving the support that they need. Indeed, briefings for this debate indicate that only 10,000 of those children will receive the support that they need from mental health services.
	The Minister for Children, Young People and Families also discussed the importance of closing the inequality gap. I want to pick up on the words that my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe used about the gap that concerns us all on the Conservative Benches—the gap between the words used in debates such as this and the reality that is delivered on the ground. We all want to work together to ensure that that gap closes.
	There were also contributions from the hon. Members for North-East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel), for Warrington, South (Helen Southworth) and for Birmingham, Yardley (John Hemming). Unfortunately, time is short, and I cannot go into great detail about the issues that they covered, but I am sure that they will want to play a full part in Committee and the remaining stages of the Bill.
	The Opposition welcome the opportunity that the Bill presents. We will do all that we can to ensure that it is ambitious, to use the words of the hon. Member for North-East Derbyshire, and that it does all that it can to raise our aspirations for what can be achieved for looked-after children. As my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham said in his opening statement, we will seek to press the Government further in Committee on a number of critical areas to improve the Bill's impact on the lives of looked-after children in all our constituencies throughout the country and to emphasise the importance of strengthening family contact, because the family is the source of our closest and most meaningful relationships, which is why we want to introduce a presumption of contact between all children in care and their siblings.
	Because we know how important stability is for children, we want to reduce the bureaucratic burden for social workers, so that there is less turnover in that profession and that, as a result, children receive the continuity of care that they need. Staff turnover among social workers in London is currently 15 per cent. every year, and it is even higher in other parts of the country. That is not only a great cause of concern for the children involved, but a great waste for local authorities.
	Additionally, we want to help children who wish to stay in care until they are 18, and we want to give care leavers a nominated social worker whom they can contact for advice. Most social workers do a remarkable job in the most difficult circumstances. Their profession has undergone a great deal of scrutiny, and some would say that their reputation had been bruised in recent years. That needs to be addressed head-on. As my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham has said, we want to consider the appointment of a chief social worker, who would be the public face of the profession.
	We want to ensure not only that foster carers are encouraged to enter the profession, but that they are protected from any unfounded allegations that may shake their desire to remain in it. We also want all private foster carers to be registered with their local authorities to increase confidence in foster carers throughout the country.
	This has been an important debate on how we can improve the situation for children who are looked-after. We should pay tribute not only to those involved in providing the care on the ground for their tireless work, but to those national organisations whose knowledge and expertise provide us all with an invaluable insight into the work that needs to be done. I am sure that all right hon. and hon. Members would like to thank those organisations that spent a considerable time providing us with the briefings that we needed in order to have such a high quality debate.
	In conclusion, this debate shows that there is no difficulty in identifying the problems and no shortage of desire to raise the aspirations of those who work with looked-after children. However, over the past decade—and perhaps even before that—there has been a failure to deliver a real change for children who are looked-after. We on this side of the House will work with the Government to help ensure that we make the most of this opportunity, because there is a will among all right hon. and hon. Members to ensure that the Bill really makes the difference that children in care need.